How Much Nigerians Spend Monthly on MTN and Airtel After Tariff Hike

MTN Nigeria and Airtel Nigeria recorded sharp increases in Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) in 2025, driven by telecom tariff adjustments and rising data consumption across the country.

ARPU, a key telecom industry metric, measures the average monthly spending of each subscriber on services such as voice calls, data, SMS and digital products.

According to MTN Nigeria’s full-year financial results, its monthly ARPU rose to $3.60 in 2025 from $2.17 in 2024.

Converted to naira, the telecom giant’s ARPU climbed to N5,184.01 from N3,542.00, indicating that the average customer spent about N5,184 monthly on the network last year.

The surge in customer spending helped push MTN’s annual revenue to N5.2 trillion, representing a 55.1% increase from the N3.3 trillion recorded in 2024.

MTN attributed the growth to increased smartphone adoption, higher data usage and improved network coverage.

The company disclosed that active data subscribers grew by 11.6%, while smartphone penetration rose by 7.9 percentage points to 66.1%.

Data traffic also increased by 34%, with average monthly usage per subscriber rising by 20% to 13.1GB.

In addition, MTN expanded its 4G population coverage by 2.1 percentage points to 84.6% through increased investment in network infrastructure and service quality improvements.

For Airtel Nigeria, monthly ARPU rose to $2.4 in 2025, for the financial year ended March 31, 2026, up from $1.7 recorded in 2024.

In naira terms, Airtel’s ARPU increased to N3,326.4 from N2,599.3, although the average customer spending remained lower than MTN’s.

Airtel said revenue grew by 47.4% in constant currency, driven largely by strong demand for data services and the impact of tariff adjustments.

“In reported currency, revenue grew by 52.8% to $1,598m, with Q4’26 revenue growth at 54.7%,” the company stated.

The telecom operator added that constant currency revenue growth was supported by ARPU growth of 36.7% and customer base growth of 9.4%.

Airtel’s data revenue jumped by 63.6%, boosted by growth in both data subscribers and data ARPU.

The company reported that data customer growth stood at 8.1%, while data ARPU expanded by 49.2% during the year.

Average monthly data usage per customer also increased significantly to 11GB from 8.4GB recorded in the previous year.

The increase in customer spending followed the implementation of the 50% telecom tariff adjustment approved by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) last year.

The tariff review raised the prices of voice calls, SMS and data bundles across the telecom industry.

Following the adjustment, the cost of SMS increased from N4 to N6, while data and call tariffs were also revised upward.

Beyond the tariff increase, rising internet consumption among Nigerians also contributed significantly to higher telecom revenues.

According to the NCC, data consumption in Nigeria has surged rapidly over the past year.

Last week, the Executive Vice Chairman of the NCC, Dr. Aminu Maida, disclosed that Nigerians now consume about 45,800 terabytes of data daily.

He said total data consumption reached 1.42 million terabytes in March 2026, compared to 995,000 terabytes recorded during the corresponding period in 2025.

However, the sharp rise in internet usage has also placed pressure on telecom networks, contributing to poor service quality experienced by subscribers in recent months.

The NCC said telecom operators are responding by increasing investments in network expansion and capacity upgrades.

According to the regulator, operators have committed to upgrading 12,000 network sites this year to improve service delivery nationwide.

The Commission also recently directed telecom companies to compensate subscribers in areas where network quality falls below approved standards.